U.S. Will Allow Rescued Cubans to Stay

A 5-year-old Cuban boy and two adults who floated to Florida on inner tubes after their boat went down in the Atlantic will be allowed to remain in the United States, a Border Patrol official said Friday.

The boy was picked up by fishermen Thursday morning, a short time after the adult man and woman washed up on Key Biscayne. Authorities have recovered the bodies of at least seven others who drowned after the boat sank on Tuesday, and three others were missing. The adults told Coast Guard officials that the group had left Cuba early Sunday.

The boy, Elian Gonzalez, whose mother was among those who drowned, was released from the hospital where he had been treated for dehydration and minor cuts.

Relatives told television station WPLG they would be taking care of him.

“God wanted him here for freedom,” cousin Marilysis Gonzalez said. “And he’s here and he will get it.”

Elian and Arianne Horta, 22, and Nivaldo Fernandez-Ferra, 33, who remained hospitalized, “would be offered the opportunity to reside here in the United States,” said U.S. Border Patrol Deputy Chief Mike Sheehy. “There is no provision to remove Cuban nationals to Cuba.”

Sheehy said someone had been smuggling the group into the United States.

“We believe that an individual in the United States took a boat to Cuba to pick them up. We believe that individual is one of the deceased,” he said.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Silvia Olvera said searchers had recovered six bodies from the waves in the Fort Pierce-Port St. Lucie area by Friday evening. A seventh body was found in the water Thursday, near where Elian was rescued off Fort Lauderdale.

The adult survivors had indicated there were 14 people aboard the boat, but they later told authorities there had been 13, Olvera said.

The search for the three missing Cubans would continue through the night, she added.